A drug prescribed for chronic pain, fentanyl is also made and sold as a street product. It can be 100 times more powerful than morphine and used to lace heroin and other drugs.

Deaths involving fentanyl nearly tripled in 2017 in Ventura County, and some observers point to its emergence locally as one reason for the rise in opioid fatalities.

About 2 pounds of suspected fentanyl have been seized in the last month alone, said Sgt. Matt Young of the Ventura County Interagency Pharmaceutical Crimes Unit.

“If fentanyl is in the county, there would be an increase. It’s so deadly,” he said, then verifying the drug’s presence. “It definitely is in town.”

Christopher Young said all but three of last year’s fentanyl deaths involved the street drug and not the prescription patch. He said in five of the deaths, fentanyl and heroin were mixed. In eight of the cases, fentanyl and methamphetamine appeared to be mixed.

Opioid deaths have ridden an up-and-down roller coaster in Ventura County over the past several years, with as many as 93 deaths reported in 2013. Christopher Young, hired as chief medical examiner last year, limited his comparisons to 2016 and 2017, citing possible differences in the way drug death causes may have been identified in the past.

Others tried to put the local surge in context by pointing at similar increases happening across the country.

“What we are seeing is consistent with a national trend,” said Dan Hicks, prevention services manager for the Ventura County Behavioral Health Department’s Alcohol and Drug Programs, citing efforts to battle the epidemic. “We’re ramping up.”

Much of the Tuesday presentation focused on those efforts, most led by a workgroup formed six years ago. That team includes hospitals, behavioral health, law enforcement, education and treatment leaders.

Hicks described efforts to convince doctors and other prescribers to use a statewide drug database that can identify people who may be doctor-shopping — seeking the same opioid painkillers from multiple doctors.

About 15 percent of Ventura County’s providers were registered in the database — CURES 2.0 — in 2013. That rose to 70 percent last year.

“It needs to be 100 percent,” Hicks said.

Other efforts include limiting opioid prescribing in emergency rooms and distributing nearly 2,000 so-called rescue kits. The kits include naloxone, a medication that reverses the effects of opioid overdoses and can prevent deaths.

Speakers focused, too, on the insidious nature of the opioid epidemic, contending that people who are addicted to prescription opioids are 40 times more likely to be hooked on heroin.

Dr. Celia Woods, quality medical director for Ventura County Behavioral Health, said people who are prescribed opioids for even just four or five days run an increased risk of becoming dependent on a drug.

But the balance in helping people dealing with post-surgical pain is a tricky one, said Dr. Tipu Khan, an addiction specialist at Ventura County Medical Center.

Khan, who didn’t attend the Tuesday presentation, said doctors are now so reluctant to provide opioids that patients facing pain sometimes can’t get prescriptions.

CLOSE

From the California Department of Public Health and its Opioid Overdose Surveillance Dashboard, here are some numbers on the state's opioid problem.
Steve Byerly

“I think a lot of patients have been cut off,” he said, noting that some of those people buy pills or heroin on the street.

Christopher Young said that while fentanyl deaths jumped dramatically, some of the molecularly altered analogs of the drugs that are even more deadly haven’t been discovered in Ventura County autopsies. He told supervisors that deaths from non-opioid substances have risen, too, including depressants called benzodiazepines, alcohol and methamphetamine.

“Everything has kind of increased across the board,” he said before the meeting.

Supervisors voted in November to study whether to file or join one of the many existing lawsuits against drug companies that produce or distribute opioid medications. That study is still ongoing, said Supervisor Steve Bennett.

After the presentation, speakers milled in the lobby. Sgt. Matt Young of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office hustled to the door, holding his cellphone. He explained he had just been notified of another overdose. It was believed to have involved opioids.

CLOSE

They get mistaken for airline pilots and military officers, but can rightly accept the praise when strangers say, "Thank you for your service." They're the U.S. Public Health Service's Commissioned Corps, a 6,500-strong group of pharmacists, engineer
Jack Gruber